NYT Middle School Article

All right then, this article is about taking middle schools out of the picture. For those who are for that idea they believe these schools should be replaced with k-8 schools or 6-12 schools. These people argue that these schools help students grades and also teach them how to look forward into the future because they will either be the roles models or they will have older high school role models to look up to. Therefore they will have be more successful, obtaining better grades, and behaving better in schools. However the other thought is that middle schools should be kept, because it offers that important transition stage form middle school to high school during a very volatile stage in a young persons life.

For my personal belief I think the purely, middle schools should consolidated into elementary school making a k-8 school so to save money. I know this has nothing to do with the argument but in the background this is also on people minds and I probably the actual thing that is driving this argument. I do not think that kids in 6^th grade should be thrust into high school. Because 11 to 13 year olds see do not need things to see things like sex, bullying on a high school level, and drugs these kids are ready for that. I think that they should take the role of the older kids, so that they can feel what that is like. But I also think that these 6 to 8^th graders still need to have the same experience that they would normally have in a middle school, small classes different teachers harder work so, traveling form class to class, so that they can still be eased into the high school system and not be completely overwhelmed by it. I do not think an 11 year old could handle this overwhelming feeling because they now have to deal with much old kids, sex, drugs, and an nurturing environment, which is something that kids at that age need. So I think you would find in a k-8 school, these kids are feeling that they are the big shots because they are the older students and therefore they will work harder, you will have less violence if you explain to them that the younger kids are looking up to them, and you can still provide a nurturing environment for these kids, and you are able to ease them into high school this way. Middle school, just to touch on this, isolates 7^th and 8^th graders from all the other age groups, it’s just a holding cell till they move on to highs school. This is not the right approach and I have never thought it was because that’s what these kid feel, that its just a holding block for two years.

PODCAST

Okay, well after listening to the podcast it was pretty interesting. Not only was it interesting becouse it was a podcast, I have never really heard one before, but it was interesting because of the content of the podcast. Essentially the podcast was about integrating gaming into a classroom. The speaker tells teachers that we need to actively engage students for the entire time that we have them; this means that we need to figure out new and improved ways of keeping their attention on the material at hand.
One way that our speaker tells us is a good way for keeping the attention of modern day students is with games or gaming. Our speaker tells us gaming can be incorporated into what we are teaching kids and will also keep them actively engaged in the task at hand. I think this is a really good idea because many of today’s kids do game, and therefore having games in the classroom is a really good way to get them directly involved with the classroom. However, our speaker points out that many digital immigrants have shot down this idea because older immigrants think video games are superficial. However my generation and the new generations of teachers, I think, will be more apt to bring games into the classroom because we grew up with gaming and games ourselves for the most part. I will most likely try and find someway to bring either video or even board games into my classroom as n educational tool.
As for the other podcast that we had to listen t, well I really couldn’t find one that I liked at all but, I can tell you when looking through some of them there are a lot of freaks out there that do these podcast, and it kind of scary. But finally I settled on a sports talk show that was on at the time and it was actually pretty good, I don’t know if it was recorded or not or if it was live, but it was still pretty good.

QR Copywirte

Wow, I can’t believe what I’ve just read about copyright. First of all after reading this it’s like all those years of teachers telling me to write down sources and to get permission from people have all been thrown out the window. Now, I’m not saying that this is a bad thing I’m just saying that I cant believe it. I think that as far as teachers go we should be able to use any resources we want, weather those sources are copyrighted or not. If it’s for an educational purpose, to advance the material that we are teaching to a higher level or if it’s to expand the knowledge of our students copyright laws should not stand I our way. However, we cannot cross the very thin line of good use and bad use. If we do as teachers use this material and also forgo the copywriter laws what we must not do is take credit for that material, saying that it is our own work. That’s crossing the line, using it to further our student understanding of material is one thing but taking credit for writing or making that material is a completely different idea. So if we are to forgo copywriter laws and use this privilege as teachers we cannot abuse it or we may loose that privilege.

Qr Blogging

So far my blog experience has been really easy, its not hard keeping up a blog and it is not at all hard making entries really all one has to do is fallow the direction and you’ll be fine. But if I have to say if anything is frustrating is when my other account wouldn’t open and I couldn’t get into it for some reason, so I had to start a whole new account and reenter all of my entire. Hopefully this doesn’t happen again because if it does ill have a lot more to replace.

Netday

Well after looking at the data on the NetDay chats I am for the most part amazed and on the other hand not amazed at all. When looking at the data obviously these kids are going to have had some experience in use technology. But I was surprised to see how much the numbers have gone up since computers were first introduced in our livers. It is also amazing how young some of these kids are when they first start using computers, some of them are only in kindergarteners, and of course as the grade level goes up the more students use computer.
But for the most part in comparing myself to these kids I may not have had a computer at such a young age but I am proficient enough to be able to put my computer skills up against the average high school student. But it does not surprise me at all that these kids are so proficient in using computers because they get to start using them at such a young age.
Lastly after seeing this data I think its increasingly more important to have computer in each room so that these kids can learn material in a way that they are already learning information, just transfer the skill from home to the classroom.

QR Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Lastly in chapter two I found a list that really helped me remember back to my high school days, and really made me look at how kids will be looking at me while I’m in the classroom. One page 19 there is the “if you’re looking for respect” list. I think this list is a very important thing because it really does outline what kids want from their teachers. For instance the first one is Show up on time. By trying to put myself in their shoes this is a really important part of the list. If we as teachers expect our students to be in the class when the bell rings then we should be in the classroom as well, not walking the hall or talking to other teachers. This list also applies to work, and I remember this really well from high school. If a teacher expects his or her students to have their work in on time then that teacher should be passing back the work within a decent amount of time. Doing this isn’t a matter of getting the work done and handing out grades but it’s a matter of respect, if we want students to have their work done and in on time they will expect, and rightly so, that we try to hand back the work to them “on time”, exactly what this list is trying to tell us how to get.

QR Chapter 1

Chapter 1

“Knowing Students Well” is a really good chapter that I gained a lot of insight from but the most important point that I found, and that I actually might use is on page 7. Here at the bottom of the page Cushman discusses how having your student write a journal is one way of getting to know them. After reading this I thought of how I could apply this to my classroom, which would most likely be geography or history. I thought if it were history I would have student look at their family history and begin keeping a journal while researching it. This way I get to know them through their family and how they do their research. In geography I would have them keep a journal about the their surrounding neighborhood, this way I learn things about them, they learn things about themselves, about their neighborhood, and they connect geography with their everyday lives.

QR: Introduction

Introduction

In the Introduction starting on page XVI, in the last paragraph and continuing onto the next page there is a story about a kid named Bryant who you would think is just the normal trouble maker in a classroom, but through talking with him we get to understand that isn’t the truth at all. After talking with Bryant Cushman finds that the problem stems from not feeling accepted into the classroom by the teacher or by the other students. I think this is an important point that she makes because most teachers would have just brushed it off by saying he’s a troublemaker and giving the kid detention. But instead we finds that if we can talk to the kids then we can find out what is really going on, this emphasizes the personal, although limited, contact teachers should have with their student so that simple things like not being accepted can be changed, another point for my give and take theory.

QR: Fires

Preface

For the Preface my favorite part is on page XI fourth paragraph down, here the author is talking about how kids in high school need to be known, but at the same time maintain boundaries, they crave learning, and they want respect from their teachers. This part is great because I can remember when I was in high school not to long ago I felt the same way, I think its important to remember that and understand that these kids are no different from you and I. As a teacher you want their respect and you want those boundaries and you want to learn from them, but you must remember that they are looking for the same exact thing in return its give and take in the classroom, more so then any other part of our lives.